I’d forgotten what things were like in these sandbox games. In Mass Effect or BioShock, you could generally count on the plot moving forward during any given episode. But here in the Nevada sandbox, it’s possible to burn through twenty minutes and not accomplish a dang thing, plot-wise.

And of course, Josh is really rushing through here. I know in my games I’m much more thorough about looting and selling as much as I can. Josh leaves a lot of corpses un-looted, and when he does loot them he leaves heavy items behind. On top of this, he isn’t going inside of each and every building and scaving for treasure. I think I spent an hour in Nipton on my last play-through. If you’ve never played this game, just imagine this episode four times in a row before moving on to the next one.

I must admit, I don’t watch the episodes much…mostly because I am at work and such video streams with sound wouldnt go over well. But also because it DRIVES ME CRAZY when he walks past an unlooted corpse, or a shelf with uber-valuable duct tape, or a building that I know has something moderatly valuable in it that I’ve already sold 12 times. I can’t stop stealing crap and looting bodies. I honestly go back to West vegas ruins every 3 days, just to kill the respawned fiends and take their stuff. HOW DO YOU NOT LOOK AT EVERY DEAD BODY? It’s like each one is a very perforated and pungent christmas present. It’s like winning at the slot machines, only you winnings are covered in bits of intestines and blood. MUST……LOOT….BUILDINGS

Am I the only person here who doesn’t have a looting addiction? In fact, I think Josh loots too much. I played through New Vegas and did my share of looting, but never looted any sort of junk item or low-level weapon/thing I didn’t otherwise need. And the only reason I ever looted any healing item other than stimpacks (and maybe Sarsaparilla) was because I was playing hardcore mode and needed food and water. Even so, I was constantly doing the frustrating task of desperately trying to make room for another 1 pound of stuff. My ammo-hoarding instinct has really worked against me on hardcore.

I know the game thinks everyone loves looting, too. Played Dead Money a few days ago and was surprised to find out that the game gave me recipes that required all the Abraxo Cleaners and Scrap Metals I saw in all those containers five minutes ago but didn’t loot because I had no need for them.

Yet I’m walking around with over 20.000 caps and 400 hand-made .50 MG. Can’t buy any more implants, either.

Another thing I’ve noticed from this let’s play is that… man, I sure missed a lot of places. The shack you guys didn’t go into? I never even knew it was there. That quest earlier on in the game with the four colored balls dude on top of the hill? Never had any idea. Just taking the Explorer perk revealed that I’d missed over 30-40% of the locations on the map. And I call myself an explorer.

I am not kidding when I say that the drive to spend the time looting and selling everything ruins games for me. I have -never- finished the main scenario of Fallout 3 or Oblivion. I always sink about 100 hours into them and then get sick of looting and lugging everything around. Then end up in deadly inventory management scenarios where one has to decide what to drop. I will stop playing a game at that point, for that exact reason.
I’m not sure if I hate myself or the game more. :P

I have the same problem, I must loot everything, no exceptions. If I can’t carry all the loot from a corpse, I will run to a shop, unload my swag and immediately run back to the half-looted corpse to finish the job. It’s pathetic.

Depending on how far away the merchant is, looting everything and walking there is also an option. I did that with 4 suits of power armor and helmets and 2 very heavy weapons (in addition to all my usual junk). Although it was a 10 minute walk, so we don’t want to encourage Josh to do that.

I solve this problem for myself usually by creating very specific storage spaces for all the crap I don’t need right now, but might later. In New Vegas, it’s been the hotel room in Novac; the safe under the TV has all the weapons, the cabinet has all the armor and clothing, the fridge has Aid items, while the wardrobe has everything under the Misc. menu. I did the same thing in FO3 and my house in Megaton.

Once I’m actually having some trouble juggling items between myself and my followers, I pop into the room and collect everything from the companions. Then after a repair binge I empty all my weapons, clothes and crafting items into their respective containers, then scroll through everything and pick out only what I see myself actually using. This more than anything keeps my home base in Novac, I think. Any of the Strip rooms take so much longer to get to, it’s ridiculous.

(On a side note, it took me forever to learn to use companions as pack mules. “Wait, you can both carry… 210+ lbs of crap? Wow. Sweet, hold these two miniguns and all my spare combat armor, thanks!”)

Just say no to excessive looting guys. The power is within you, it’s only a game after all. I promise you’ll run into plenty more 9mm pistols, pieces of scrap metal or what-have-you along the way. :p

An interesting note is that the Wolfhorn Ranch was the home of Ulysses, the companion who got cut from the game.

For the Legion ambushing the caravans… I’ve *never* seen the Legion win that ambush in my games because the caravans almost always end up owning them, and there is often a NCR squad going by at the same time as well.

I’m glad you mentioned the gunfire in the distance. One thing that I think New Vegas does *extremely* well that often gets overlooked (probably because of the damn radio), is that it has a very well done soundscape. Just from the sound-effects to the ambient “music” that sometimes play just for a few seconds out in the wasteland. Very effective stuff I think.

I, also have usually seen the Legion get wasted by the Caravan. When I was about at this point in my first playthrough, I got ambushed by the Legion Assassins right next to were the Legionnaires were hiding in ambush. I ran back towards the Caravan and the guards killed all of them for me.

Though the sound is usually missed because of the addictive looping radio stations that you can listen all day long.

It took having over 5000 caps and loads of unsold crap for me to stop picking up everything that is worth at least 10 caps per pound.Which also was hard for me to do,because my first limit was 5 caps per pound.And even with that last restraint,I still ended up with looting bodies only to find out I have to drop something.

I propose we form a group LA – Looters anonymous:”Hello,Im Daemian Lucifer,and I havent looted a single thing in new vegas for 5 whole days”*crowd claps and cheers*.

I like to think of it from the point of view that, after I win the game, my character isn’t going to want to wander and explore as much any more, so they’re trying to save up a nice little nest egg to keep them comfortable for the foreseeable future.

I have recently started to force myself to ignore looting crap and selling it, or doing sidequests that I clearly don’t care about. Games have gotten a lot shorter, and a lot better. I’d rather have double the enjoyment per time, and play two games instead of one.

Wow! I started recreating Novac almost the first thing I did on the Twentymine server. Actually, I never finished it.

I knew for some trailer or interview what Novac was and why it was named like that long before I got the game. While I might have missed the enjoyment of figuring it out for myself, not having played any previous Fallout game it was part of what convinced me this was a game I wanted.

If the punch-gun was a shotgun strapped to your hand, yes.
Doesn’t need reloading, deals obscene damage, and has a fairly good knockback effect. Also works with the special melee moves, such as the leg sweep.

I’ve had way more bugs with FO1 than I ever did with 2. Granted, BOTH of them had numerous features that didn’t work right and endings that were rendered inaccessible. Want to save the Followers in 1? FUCK YOU Black Isle can’t fix things. Want to save the Deathclaws in 2? FUCK YOU Black Isle can’t fix things.

But it’s only in 1 where I’ve encountered broken quests during the actual gameplay (and honestly I’m GLAD some features in 1 didn’t work right, that whole “mutants destroy towns” thing sounds godawful).

The start of 2 IS annoying as someone who prefers to be an intelligent gunslinger though, but after so many times playing it you already know how to get around the obvious paths and find the good stuff (Namely, in San Fran).

BOTH original Fallouts had a problem with Big Guns and Energy Guns showing up WAY too late in the game. Fallout 2 just went the extra step and made you go through a tutorial with nothing but melee and throwing weapons (although someone with good speech and sneak can make it through just fine). Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Although, past tutorial, there’s a rifle in the very first town. Crappy, but it gets the job done for the time being for the Small Guns fan…

That said, Fallout 2 definetely had more glitches than 1, even if you were lucky enough not to experience them. Can’t tell you how many times I lost my trunk…

I know it’s for balancing and all that, but it DOES restrict your builds. You can’t be a raging, kill everything that moves, energy weapon specialist from the get go.

It’s one of the few things I think the new Fallout improved. Plasma pistol readily accessible.

While the lore excuse helps, I can see how it’d annoy some people. I mean, it makes sense that not EVERY person on the planet would survive the wasteland (and thus, not every build would work) but there’s a point in games when realism becomes a nuisance…

Yeah, I’ve been playing through Fallout 2 recently. So far, I’ve been using the spear exclusively pretty much. I’ve found myself quickly outclassed by my allies in terms of damage output, but I don’t want to waste putting the skill points in guns if I can’t even afford one.

Temple of Trials is pretty easy to do once you realize most of it is completely useless and just start running straight through it. Hell if you time it right you can even get by all but maybe 3 of the ants.

I only played FO2 once (because it’s a big freakin time sink, though I’m thinking about it again now), a long time ago. I do remember the temple as being the hardest and most frustrating part of the game.

Fallout 1 broke like a wafer though. Once I got a good shotgun, I was breezing through the game without my companions, massacring muties with ease. In 2, you could be armed and armored to the teeth, and have a full army who are just as well equipped, and you probably STILL won’t be able to fight through the oil rig without grinding like hell. The fact the level cap was insane and the skill cap was 300 changed quite a bit in that game.

As for car glitches, I’ve never lost my trunk, but I did once lose my ENGINE. IN SAN FRAN.

But whatever the small mechanical differences or glitches, I will still always prefer 2 to 1 for two main reasons:
A) There’s more to do.
B) There’s no time limit to do it.

If you’re making a game about exploring an interesting setting, don’t try to LIMIT the amount of time we can do that in. It’d be even worse if all the features worked, because in addition to the main time limit, mutants would periodically destroy various towns.

All you needed in Fallout 2 was a decent Small Guns skill and a gauss rifle/pistol. Shoot everything you meet in the eyes, you can finish every fight in the game at a remarkably low level, especially since there’s no mandatory delay before you can wear power armor, where FO3 and NV both lock the training behind a quest.

And I will always prefer FO2 to FO1 for one single solitary reason. I can shove a companion who’s trapping me in a corner. I never get stuck in a corner with only two choices, those being “blow Ian’s head apart” or “reload and repeat the entire fight”.

You didn’t need to kill everyone in the oil rig though, especially if you had the right skills. In fact, you could finish the entire thing without firing a shot. I think.

Fallout 2 had bugs, but it had AWESOME bugs. Like getting outdoorsman to 300% early on (seriously who thought that skill was fair anyway) and getting infinity books.

Big guns and energy weapons were harder to find because they were marked as mid-to-late game skills, even though the game never told you that. You were kind of supposed to know. In retrospect, much of the game design in FO2 is outdated as hell.

Oh I know, and I’ve never bothered. I just park my army in the starting area, run through stealing crap in my Navarro-Issued Advanced Power Armor, and deal with speech checks and annoying electric floor puzzles.

Then when I get back Frankie boy has to deal with Enclave soldiers turned traitor, reprogrammed turrets (super-stim assassinations are awesome), and all the fury of Skynet, Marcus, Sullik, Cassidy, Vic, and myself.

Fun times. But yeah, the old games have a lot of design problems. Still better than 3 mind, but nothing compared to NV.

I always had the feeling that Josh didn’t explore everything or loot everything primarily because of time constraints. There have been a couple times I’ve thought “wait! go back!” but you do have a show to do.

The other thing I tend to do a lot of in this game (and the previous, actually) is explore. The more fast travel points I have on my map, the better. Of course, that means that sometimes advancing the plot takes a back seat. Like you, Shamus, if it’s a building I can go into, I do.

In my play-through (I am working through my first), the caravan decimated the Legion troops.

It is a strange thing. He’s skipping far more loot than the average player could stand, and it will make things a bit harder for him down the road. At the same time, he’s probably STILL looting too much for the purposes of keeping the show moving. The “sweet spot” here is a region of negative space.

Couldn’t he just play a few hours of just shooting random enemies and going back to places he’s already done to loot the stuff, so that he’s got everything he need; than skip looting (almost) entirely during the playthrough?

I mean, there’s no law stating every second of his game experience has to be seen…

This is, after all, a video for the purposes of critique, not education or training… It doesn’t have to be internally self-consistent so long as those violations of continuity are noted, as with the “Let’s try this again…” at the beginning of the episode.

I’m pretty sure he DOES do that… I don’t remember him talking to the Caravan before this episode. Notably, I multitask while watching these (since the dialogue is more important than the picture) but still…

If Josh plays New Vegas in any way similar to FO3, he’ll keep using guns until he maxes his sneak and melee, at which point all game balance will snap like a fresh piece of celery under his mighty bonnet.

I think the issue with cutting large portions of play like this is that the other hosts would have to refrain from talking or else Josh would have to edit out potentially interesting conversation.

And I think it changes the tenor of the series quite a bit if episode become peppered with “and I spent two hours grinding for levels.” I think that kind of a gap works better if it’s for a specific point (getting back to where a previous death happened, picking up those ingots to get the ridiculous weed-whacker weapon in FO3), than just to skip large portions of gameplay.

I could spend two hours sorting inventory, crafting, and lugging stuff back to my home base. And go to bed feeling like I’d played an enjoyable evening of video-gamin’ goodness. (Bonus: no ammo used up!)

You cannot simply edit out the looting because it would completely break continuity and make the show unwatchable. As suggested above, Josh would need to press on lootless all episode long and *then* go back and loot off camera.

Hey, if he’s un-prepared for the ending, that means the drinking game’s going to take a sharp increase in enjoyability then. Quarter deaths, a quarter of “STOP SHOOTING ME!”, a quarter of “In the original game…”, and a quarter of “See, in New Vegas today…”; more or less as being added in droves.

It _is_ a bit of a delicate balancing act. On one hand, you need to keep the show moving. On the other, some of the cast’s best conversations have happened when there was really no plot point being engaged or directly pursued. If Josh cuts some game play out for time reasons, it may indirectly cause the cast to not talk about a certain point because of when/where that conversation occurs.

Personally, I enjoy episodes like this one, even when it looks like not much gets done because it lets you talk about things that might normally get passed over – like the caravans and the Legion attacking them, or the ambush.

As a side note, I found my first star bottle cap near here. I rested at the ranger station, and was rudely awakened (mid-rest) by the guy that tells you about the quest.

Maybe you should have one or two episodes like what you did collecting the ingots in the Pitt–do a time lapse video of Josh grinding with an enteraining soundtrack and an occassional slow down to highlight any especially egregious bugs/Ruts puns.

It would become tired if you did it too much, but one or two might make the rest of the game overall go faster since you will be higher level.

If you have a decent luck score, just break the bank in the casinos. It’s remarkably easy. Blackjack is almost impossible to lose and you can just cut all that out of the video after you win a hand or so. What I typically do is play blackjack till I’m maybe ~600 caps below the break point, then save and go play slots till I hit something sizable. I make something like 20-30k caps per casino, if not more, and it doesn’t take long at all. Get the Naughty Nightwear from Mick&Ralph’s for an extra +1 LCK. That’ll give you an ~8 luck, if I remember rightly, which should be enough to win easily.

You’ll easily be able to afford to buy almost anything you want for the rest of the game, so this really cuts down on the need to loot. I only bother with things I actually want to use, or with things that have a very high resale value.

“I just walked around and people started shooting at each other.” Ladies and gentlemen, the Cuftbert effect. Also, if you were a merchant going through hostile territory would you wear different gear than your body guards? I’d try to put as few “please shoot me first” signs on my body as possible.

ALSO
A) There’s a Unique Cleaver called the “Chopper” in that farmhouse, it’s better than the Machete. Then again, you could always just run down to Cottonwood Cove once you’ve got a companion and start murdering the hell out of the Legion there, there’s a guy there (maybe two) who has a Machete Gladius, which aside of Super Sledges is probably the best melee weapon on the game (off the top of my head).

B) In New Vegas you are just plain addicted to alcohol, not specifics types like in 3.

On drugs: on my latest play-through, I basically played a Fiend; I was a drug-hound, downing any and every drug while in combat (it really gives you a strong edge when you need one, like taking on Deathclaws at level 14.) The key to playing a “Fiend” is the drug Fixer – it removes addictions (it says temporarily, but it’s a permanent (until you get addicted again) removal.)

Things got a little hairy when I ran out of Fixer, and I stumbled around the wasteland suffering withdrawal until I randomly ran into some more Fixer. It was like manna from heaven.

The drug Hydra is also really cool, especially in Hardcore, because it’s the only way aside from Doctoring (bags or people) to restore limb health.

Med-x, Psycho, Steady, Turbo. Go-go-go! We’re practically playing the same fiend character. I’ve set some artificial limits for mine, only allowed to use pistols, revolvers, the sawn-off shotgun and big weapons. No armour, thus she consumes absolutely everything that makes her take less damage.

And she has to keep Cass around. I’m sort of working off the idea that she sees Cass as a big sister figure and tries to keep her happy.

…which means that in-between stints of being a homicidal maniac she’ll pause and go kill some Powder Gangers to work herself back to neutral karma.

I do suppose it’s a bit lame to create narratives that aren’t there, but it gives me replay value and makes me stick to my restrictions if I give them some semi-plausible reasoning. I.e she doesn’t wear power-armour because all the chem abuse makes her feel claustrophobic in a tin suit and armour in general does that. So forth and so on.

Y’know, while it makes sense from a game perspective for the Legion to hate you for slaughtering those troops, who’s left to tell them? None of the Legion got away, and the town’s dead. The word of what you did also spreads ahead of Cuftbert’s bunny-hopping ass. Somehow, the guys in charge knew about the death of their men as soon as it happened…

This really irritates me. I sneak-assasinate the lonesome drifter, without him seeing me, and I’m suddenly hated by the Strip? When he isn’t even affiliated with the Strip until you do an optional quest to bring him there? It’s absurd.

You try to loot everything? I assume you took the long haul perk and a crap-tonne of buffout, or I don’t see how you could stand that. I only ever take armour and weapons when they’re notably valuable.

Novac is named after a broken neon sign that says “no vacancy”. Since the “ancy” part of the sign is broken it only says “no vac”, Novac. Arefu I don’t really know. The vault wiki says that it’s a small village in Romania known for being close to Dracula’s castle (well Vlad the impaler really) and there are vampire quests in Arefu, maybe that’s what they were getting at?

So I was just like mmmmmmk, people like boobs, I can get over that then I found someone had done exactly the same for … the males “Member”, I got over that just the same I mean other people like dick right?
Then I found that someone had come along and added PHYSICS to both of the previous……

If it wasn’t for the JJ, I’d be tempted to get that one. One thing I hate is how everyone on the planet has the same build. No curvy women. No muscular guys. No fat people. No stooped old people. No scrawny people.

Just applying a bit of deformation to the models would do miracles for the world.

We could just play the “Kids, try this at home!” game. Any time Reginald takes something, you take it too: whiskey for whiskey, sarsaparilla for sarsaparilla, steak for steak. There would need to be some kind of conversion table for the drugs, though.

Maybe it’s just me but I couldn’t hear half of the stuff Rutskarn said during this episode. I kept having to backtrack and concentrate in order to make out anything. Them ears getting old on me. Or maybe it’s me not being an English speaker.

I feel you, man. It’s at least for me in part not being native English speaker, so I do miss quite a of Rut’s puns, if it’s just not his voice getting drowned by somebody else speaking or ingame sounds.. my most common reaction is just “Oh what the hell did he just say again” and then I have to rewind the video to listen again. It’s definitely easier for me to detect one when reading rather than listening.

As far as the references go, I believe part of the problem might be if you live outside of US when it comes to cultural ones. I live in Finland and I’d never heard of “Alice’s Restaurant” before watching the episode nor even the artist Alro Guthrie before doing a little Google search.

Yes, Brian Blessed. But then we’d need a companion called Gordon so that Shepard could comment upon his liveliness.
There aren’t nearly enough british voice actors in games outside of Fable. One of the few things I liked about Dragon Age 2 was the fact that there was far more variation in the voice acting. Where by ‘far more variation’ I mean lots of english, irish and french instead of endless americans.

You made me sad when you said the legion’s boring, I loved them! It may just because I’ve always been a sucker for latin and the roman empire but I thought they were cool. Like how Caeser is obsessed with the real caeser and nobody really knows he’s not the real caeser. I thought it was a brilliant faction.

It was talked about in one of the other comment sections but I think a lot of the Legion was wasted potential. I really love the good parts about it. I love how Caesar has all this elaborate reasoning behind his ideas. He’s one of few characters in gaming that I would call crazy but in a somewhat believable way. He is a mad-man but intelligent and educated.

But other than that I think the Legion was lacking A) more characters to flesh them out really B) more characters that weren’t simply “bahaha slaves, bahahah, murder and pillaging, bahahaha profligates” and C) a better presentation of why the might be a good thing for the wasteland despite their very brutal techniques.

Nevertheless, I do appreciate it that… well, you can fucking help their cause if you want to in NV. Another RPG and they would’ve undoubtedly been the “evil guys” who you would have to fight. Again, I think that’s why I find NV such a great RPG. Even though the main quests don’t differ that much from one another, you can create a lot of different characters and still find a good place for them in the wasteland. Don’t like the NCR? Screw them. Don’t want to help Goodpsrings? Kill everyone there. Help the Powder Gangers. Or don’t, kill them as well. The game is really flexible.

Agreed, what the Legion really needed to flesh them out as a faction was a few towns under their control. Show something besides the slaves and soldiers, show some different PERSONALITIES besides the slaves and soldiers.

There /is/ some significant discussion about the Legion as a viable, and even reasonable, alternative to the NCR.

The hitch is that very little by way of reasonable, pro-Legion arguments are available to the player without jumping through some pretty big hoops to get there. All of the Companions who can offer favorable light on the Legion are behind at least a fairly long, circuitous hike, and everyone else who would is either a Legion soldier who hates you for being a Profligate or is /in/ Legion territory.

The Legion itself makes little effort to recruit the player until the midgame, and what attempts they make to persuade the player are either preceded by better arguments from more reasonable people or blatantly surrounded by arguments against them (see: Nipton).

Developing more personality for the Legion is, of course, difficult since contact is limited to their huge, forward war-party. We aren’t seeing much of Legion civilization…we are exposed almost exclusively to Legion warfare, which is always a somewhat less flattering viewpoint to look on a culture unless you happen to admire that sort of thing.

I think a lot more could have been done with Vulpes and/or other Frumentarii attempting to bring the Courier around to Caesar’s way of thinking, for broadly the same reasons that NCR and Mr. House make such overtures.

It’s not just that we aren’t seeing much of Legion civilization, most of the NCR you meet is soldiers too, it’s just that almost every Legionnaire you meet is, without fail, an asshole. The NCR is also at war just as much as the Legion, but they allow you to see more human, or at least more INTERESTING faces. Manny and Boone, the folks in the Mojave outpost, the First Recon team at MacCarren (spelling?), they’re all willing to talk to you, chat about what you need (have you seen the guy who shot me?), and offer you quests for glorious XP. Your introduction to the Legion is some dude who sacks a town and then orders you to send word. Your next sight of them is soldiers knocking over caravans.

Almost everything you get to SEE of the Legion paints them as little more than successful, mildly obsessive raiders. There is almost zero “human” element to them unless you go out of your way to find it. They really needed civilians, or military guys who weren’t actively stomping on puppies while you tried to talk to them, to give them some sort of face besides “the Evil Empire.” Hell, they even prefer face-concealing headgear over the NCR’s helmets. As a faction they feel like they were going to be interesting, but then took a sharp right turn at “asshole” and “evil,” this isn’t helped by the Karma meter, which will gladly reward you for slaughtering recruits who could be nice chaps who like a drink with the buddies and a game of caravan.

I’ve got to say, I sort of like how the Legion was handled. I’d like to see more Legion dominated towns and such so you can get a feel what life is like away from their raiding parties and war camps, but overall, I do like the Legion.

Sure, it’s brutal. Sure, it’s “evil”. But it’s a brutal wasteland. It’s a world where a pack of drug crazed fiends can roam out of the wastes, rape everybody on your homestead, then burn them alive. And the “good guys” will say “Sorry, we don’t have the capability to do anything about that.”

That crap doesn’t happen in Legion territory. Caravans don’t get burned out and robbed. Sure, the idea of trading that much freedom for security may seem repulsive to us, but we’re not facing the Fiends. We’re not seeing 18 wheelers firebombed on the highway by business competitors. In the Mojave Wasteland, I can easily see people willing to trade freedom for safety and being glad to make the deal. At least at first.

They may regret it later, once they’re not worrying about the Fiends and/or Powder Gangers and/or Khans swarming out of nowhere and killing them all, of course.

A good argument, but the illusion is somewhat shattered when I can take my gal with ONE Endurance, 5 Strength, and a cleaver, plus Boone with his regular gun, and then the two of us run right over every non-wasp or chameleon related threat in the wastes.

Seriously, assaulting and destroying Nelson and Cottonwood Cove at level 7, only to murder the hell out of everything there. It’s ridiculous. And of course, the fiends are even bigger jokes since their armor has almost no DT and their weapons are crap by comparison.

What Daemian said. You have the edge over everyone else by default. Also, it doesn’t really take that much effort to slaughter all of NCR either if you’re feeling like it, just maybe more tedious and time consuming since they got camps and bases all over the desert.

Look. You’re up against an army with close air support, snipers, arty, the whole nine yards. The proper response is not, and never will be “Slaves with knives!”

It’s counter snipers, rocket launchers, all that. Tech. Legion swears off tech for the most part.

Then there’s the medical front. Eesh. Lose more men to disease than the enemy even under good conditions until the 20th century. This is a radioactive wasteland. The Legion hates med-tech.

Oh! And the sexism! That takes half the population out of utility purposes. Just stupid. Sure, random guy and random gal, guy’s probably better suited to the killing, but that’s nowhere near universal. Equal rights works well for societies, or at least not-brutal-oppression.

Then there’s the treatment of slaves. Not suited to long term use, even if slaver societies are a good idea.

And I could go on. It’s not even a bad set of ideas long term. Its a bad set of ideas now.

Wasn’t their reasoning for breaking all slaves’ legs “so they can’t run away”? Great! Your slaves can’t run away. They also can’t do anything because they’re in too much pain and too crippled to be useful or effective workers. Why even have slaves, at that point. If you can’t even do anything with them, they’re just more mouths to feed in an enviroment where resources are incredibly valuable.

Yeah, Cass actually makes a good argument for the Legion. Legion territory is SAFE. They do awful things to their enemies, but their people live in complete safety. Meanwhile, the NCR is spreading itself too far and too thin, trying to expand in without the manpower to pull it off.

The one problem with the Legion is that mysoginy thing they got going… That REALLY hurts the “different but not ‘evil'” thing they had going.

Though it’s important to note that there is a thought behind the way women are treated as well. Caesar is obviously very interested in making people loyal to the Legion and raising people to be that way and the “best way” to do that is to do it from the point of birth. A conquered tribe won’t have the same loyalty typically. Think that’s nicely illustrated by the guy from Denver (I think it was, the town overrun by dogs) who seems rather affectionate towards his old way of living even though he doesn’t really admit it.

That’s not to say that Caesar’s plan is non incredibly short-sighted and very morally suspect, but there is a justification there at least.

He also mentions several times that Vegas will be his “Rome” and one can assume that he plans to create a civilization there. I believe he does recognize the folly of many “warband cultures” in the past as well, like the Mongols or what have you though I might be misremembering that part.

In many ways, I find the Legion to be the most interesting part of NV, at least the motivations of Caesar. Think he’s a really great, crazy character. It’s just too bad that all the good stuff is sorta hidden in Caesar himself. I mean, the guy makes the Legion swear off a lot of tech… but not all of it. And he even keeps an auto-doc for himself (think he comments on this). It’s great.

I love the introduction of the Legion at Niption as well, think it was nice to set them up as a really brutal faction, but once the player got to Fortification Hill, there should’ve been a bigger attempt to persuade him that the Legion might be a viable choice for the wasteland even with the brutality.

I have to ask: who’s maintaining the railway lines. I mean, it has WOODEN sleepers, I’m pretty sure they’d have rotted by now. There’s piles of junk and gaps in the tracks, so I assume NV doesn’t have a working rail service so uh.

It seems I may be alone on this one but Fallout 2 has been my favorite of the series.

Now, I will admit that the original Fallout was a much tighter game, fewer bugs, and had a much better 3rd act but I loved Fallout 2 more.

The beginning, while it is a rather pain to go awhile as a tribesman, I am always fascinated by post-apocalyptic cultures and seeing the tribe, their ritual worship of the vault dweller, and talking to the people was always fun and never grey dull (for me, anyways).

Also, the more diverse choice of items and more willingness to go into more criminal subject matter (joining the mafia and whatnot) gave me a much greater sense of freedom in the game.

Also, I always believed reputation was much better handled in Fallout 2. The only thing that really does get me beyond angry in Fallout 2 is the deathcalws.

Fallout is a better game objectively but I’ve always spent more time and had much more fun in Fallout 2 then any other game in the series.

I mean, it’s partially a personal thing. My first vault dweller was a total tech head. Rocking power armor, Brotherhood knight, possibly greatest mind the world has seen since the Vaults closed. So, when he was sent out alone, the logical “what he does next” could be a lot of things, probably involving lasers and/or robots.

Which makes it totally logical that he’d found a village of tribal, cow worshiping morons who use all their resources to build a gigantic deathtrap to send their kids into in a religious ceremony built around an “artifact” carefully explained to the majority of the above 50 set in the village when they were kids, complete with instruction videos.

Gah. Hate Arroyo. And you can’t kill anyone there. I mean, I don’t typically go psychotic murderer, but the option is nice to have, you know?

Prefer 1. World made more sense. Held together.

Fallout 2, it’s rather easy to forget there is a main plot. In the worst way.

That didn’t fit my Vault Dweller too. At very least next to my old jumpsuit there should be my trusty 10 mm pistol (not to mention all those weapons looted from military base.) And that’s the problem with tribal bit, there is easy way out: give the player the same starting equipment (s)he got in previous game.
Elder:’This is the holy box Vault Dweller left in case of emergency.’ Holotape inside the holy box: ‘Ok buddy, I guess it’s your turn to find the waterchip or whatever and save the wasteland, here are some tips on doing that and living to tell the tale:
1. Avoid deathclaws
2. etc.
Sincerely
Vault Dweller ‘

New Vegas is first Fallout that does it right though. You get weapons fitting your tagged skills. Tagged Energy Weapons in original Fallout? Eat dirt and scream as mantises reap flesh off your bones before you even reach Shady Sands! (happened on my very first playtrough )

While I do agree, the tribal bit does make big holes in the story if you pick the techy-side of things but Fallout 2 isn’t unique with that.

In Fallout 1 and 3, you’re telling me they practiced with plasma guns and explosives in an air-tight vault beneath the ground?

The tribal bit of Fallout 2 is much more obvious and I understand finding it boring (plus, the first hour of the game when you get out does become annoying while you try to get some decent weapons) but all the Fallout games have had their holes with specialization except New Vegas.

New Vegas, to me, was genius with having your character already be fully part of the wasteland world and thus could explain any specialization.

I remember in Fallout 2 getting to a pretty high level, going back to the Den, and killing the entirety of the Slavers Guild (this was on one of my nice playthroughs). I was down to one guy of the Slavers Guild left and…crash to desktop. I hadn’t saved since I started the fight.

I also ran into the apparently common bug of the cars boot disappearing and reappearing at random intervals.

I keep checking Google reader for the new episode to no avail!
What gives, man! I want my free entertainment that I have come to take so much for granted I feel I can complain when it doesn’t arrive in a timely fashion!

I can answer this. Gather around my son so I can tell you the tale of how Spoiler Warning S5E9 was never made. A long long, time ago (depending on how you perceive time) in a land far, far away (depending on where you live) little Rutskarn set out on the most amazing adventure of them all – to make some free video content *flourish*. Along the way he met a straaange lady who was wearing curious things called “hed-fones” mumbling to her self while walking down the street. “I shall call you… Mumbles!” exclaimed little Rutskarn. She seemed a little confused, her eyes out of focus and an almost empty bottle in her hands, but she quickly took to liking little buy for his quick wit and honest heart. She invited him to come along with her, for her new favourite band – Dum Dum Girls, was playing in the local watering hole. Young Ruts was more then a little confused. “But I have never even heard of those ladies!” he proclaimed. Then, after a few moments he continued: “Oh, I know what you are! You are one of those hip-sturs my mother warned me about. I don’t think I want to go with you”. No slower then he uttered those words when a teerrrrible shriek spread across the street and an almost empty bottle flew right at our little hero!*waves hands* But worry not! He was nimble of foot and moved himself out of the harm’s way just in time to dodge *waits a moment for cheering to stop, then continues*. Then they heard loud cussing and a lot of strange words then hanged heavily on boy’s young mind. Rummaging through a nearby dumpster a shady gentleman going by the name of Josh was struck by the bottle square on the head and were he not wearing the most stylish a bonnet of them all he would have been seriously injured. But what hurt him far more then physical pain was the senseless waste of liquor that such an act represented. Josh and the lady got into a heated argument but before things could take a turn for the worse our silver tongued man-child made them reconcile and suggested they all head for the local bar where the hipster band was playing for there was bound to be something for everybody there. They were sure to have many wondrous adventures on the way but then, out of nowhere, an evil wizard named Shamus turned up and used his powers of schedulemancy to ruin everything! And that is how we were left in darkness for days without our much needed free entertainment.

Okay, I realize I’m seriously behind the curve with this, but the key to the gun locker was right in front of him, containing a PLASMA RIFLE, worth a good deal, capable of a good deal of Damage. especially painful for me to see because I used energy weapons. Gnaaahhh!

Now before I finally discovered that Ceaser had a brain tumor I’m always saying to myself “Who would be insane enough to join this post apocalyptic insane maniac that wants to create an anarchy (of some sorts)to rule a wasteland that ALREADY has an insane ruler (Mr.House, or as I say, Dr.House). After discovering that semi-explainable plot I say to myself “Well that explains a lot.” Then I proceed to walk directly into Ceaser’s camp, personally (with no companions)murder him with my plasma defender and proceed to (little by little) loot everything there and sell it. My point here is that i just don’t find Ceaser that intelligent and I don’t see in any way how he would gain any followers besides the people he finds on the streets yelling about Illuminati conspiracies.